TIFTON — Tiftarea Panthers’ players, coaches, families and friends celebrated a

successful 2015 season with a banquet Thursday night as players were recognized for their accomplishments this year.

Cade Marlowe was recognized as the Region 3-AAA Player of the Year, an honor he also won in 2014.

According to Coach Brad Porter, Marlowe is the first two-time winner of the award. Marlowe set single-season school records for home runs (12), runs scored (50) and hits (53). He batted .515 with a 1.019 slugging percentage, 35 RBIs and 34 stolen bases. He also recorded 6 wins and 2 saves with a 1.856 ERA on the mound. Panthers earning first team all-region honors were Marlowe, Devin Paulk, J.T. Tanner and Bo Vickers. Marlowe and Paulk were also first team All-State selections.

In addition to the GISA region and state awards, Tiftarea recognized several players for team awards.  Porter presented Marlowe with the Scholar Athlete award which recognizes the player with the highest GPA. Porter then presented Tanner with the Most Improved Player award, Paulk with the Teammate award and Marlowe with the Panther Leadership award and the Ironman award.

Marlowe, Paulk and Tanner, all seniors, have definite plans for the future. Marlowe has earned an academic and athletic scholarship to play baseball at the University of West Georgia, where he has been accepted into the university’s Honors College. He plans to pursue an undergraduate degree in pre-med followed by medical school. Paulk will enroll in the pre-engineering program at ABAC and then pursue a mechanical or agricultural engineering degree at Georgia Tech. Tanner will pursue a business management degree at Georgia Southern.

Porter has been selected to coach the GISA AAA All-Star team and Marlowe and Paulk are two of 16 players selected statewide to represent the AAA team in the game.